Late yesterday, my great friend and inspirational mentor, Roger Lankford passed away. He taught me about fairness and honour, bravery and determination, integrity and loyalty, and the value of fraternity, and all by simply offering me his own footsteps to walk in. Rest well, Roger; you've earned it.

Arquebus arrives on this forum. They have never posted before, and they have only posted in this thread. At no time have they revealed who they are, or why they are qualified or interested to talk on this subject. And then they write: It will also include provisions entitling you to a state subsidiz...

Realistically, how many deaths do you think would occur every year if reproduction flintlock or matchlock long guns didn't require a certificate? I think it would be 0. Black powder incidents in the US are reported and recorded; they do kill people. And people are injured all the time. I'd like to ...

I could see some advantage in moving all replicas with "obsolete means of ignition" to section 2; or at least within some sensible limit of bore. I have to carry a section 1 licence, with all the extra admin that entails, so I can hold a flintlock pistol that is no more of a risk than a 2&...

The figures were given to us by Unique events staff as they came round at the end of the day. I have no reason to believe that they were anything other than accurate. I have no reason to believe they weren't accurate either; nor was even implying they weren't correct; I was just being cautious. I k...

I do think they would have struggled to safely put more people into the arena that was supplied though. In that respect, lower numbers was okay. Presumably they had a reasonable estimate of how many were actually attending as the weekend approached, and planned the size of the arena accordingly; no...

jermleenats wrote:i know archers back then were suppose too be the best and took alot of training but i wanted to know when the enemie came in too close what were there side arms dagger? sword axe or mace? or something else?

I think we cover this quite well in the thread; just start reading from the beginning.

you should ALWAYS check with your local police, if it conflicts with what is below... It's worth noting that, in the past, local police have not always given the correct advice on this, and on occasion have refused to issue an A&K for the site. People who have heard Danny Kay speak on this subj...

It's that time when, having earlier in the year invited our usually interested traders to attend our events, we start actively look for traders to fill the remaining spaces. Spaces are now being filled on a first-come-first-served basis. So if you've received an invite and you're a trader hoping to ...

Caged birds are easy to transport, keep fed, etc.; relative to other livestock. I believe in the later Age of Sail exotic birds were often transported and sold, which may be where the pirate/parrot association comes from. It doesn't surprise me that one turns up in a medieval painting; probably the ...

I did a couple of those. The thing that sticks with me was that I'd spent years telling people how our reenactment swords were, if anything, heavier than the real things because of the thick blunt edges, and then being given two genuine medieval swords to handle, one of which had heavier, more crow...

PaulMurphy wrote:With respect to Crecy, the cutting down of lances to make usable spears is purely an artifact of the cavalry being dismounted. They had several lances each and a sword, but on foot what they really needed was a spear.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. Okay then, I'll take a 20 foot spear along then and tell everyone it's fine because we don't know what length they used. I was implying that the best thing to do is to speculate based on practical considerations, rather than extrapolating from other datelines; but you c...

You'll have to be more clear here - Bannockburn showed mounted knights losing to lots of spears, you're presumably saying the idea still in its infancy is of fighting on foot instead of on horseback. And Crecy is 1346, i.e. 32 years later, under a King who was a toddler when Bannockburn occured. So...

A thing that hasn't been said is that there is no reason to suppose Bannockburn (and related battles) are typical of the period. It's a time of change for British tactics, that arguably might be triggered by the English experience at Bannockburn. I don't think it's a co-incidence that the English co...

You might have the issue here of spears being long enough to control well enough to hurt people being too long to safely use when trying to not hurt people! The longest I have used it just over 9 feet but that was allowing one handed step thrusts etc. It was perfectly doable, just took some extra b...

A sad fact of the matter is that marshaling, toilets, marketing, security, police, first aid and a fair few other items, site office hire and staffing, planning formulation etc etc will suck up a lot of that budget. I didn't mean that. I meant the event is largely not a re-enactment; it's a very la...

I'm sorry, Brother, I'm having difficulty untangling the parts of that answer. Payne's article suggests that the yoke was the traditional plough team system in England and any attempts to yoke horses would have tragic consequences, since they are made differently in the neck department ...which I un...

If I'm honest, I'm not likely to find the time to read those (so much to read, so little time), so can I be cheeky and tap the knowledge here... Ian Mortimer suggests, in passing, that it's adoption of the horse collar that allows horses to replace oxen. Since the horse collar arrived in England by ...

Quite. So, if I understand correctly, selective breeding in the medieval period is not about creating/maintaining a breed, in the modern sense, but about choosing to breed (usually with a sire) which has traits that one wishes to see in the offspring. This might largely be restricted, not just by th...